And everywhere its radiance touched the Kel, there was the sound, the sudden hissing. Bulbous bodies went limp. Pseudopodal tissue oozed away like oil on pavement.

Grimly, I spun the knob the other way—hunting down my foes, driving them to cover.

Then—quite suddenly, it seemed—no more Kel were visible. I stood in complete command of the control room of an alien globeship.

I smiled a little at that time, I think—a slow, contemplative smile, with nothing that could be spoken of as humor in it.

After that, tight-lipped, I called, "Celeste! Get up here!"

Hollow-eyed, tousle-headed, she came out from behind the ridge where she'd been hiding.

Not giving her a chance to speak, I said, "These things, the Kel—how do they tell you what they want?"

"How?"—She moved uncertainly "It's—well, one of them—becomes like me. We talk. Then—"

"That's enough," I grunted. "Look around. Start hunting for one who's hiding like you were behind the ridges."

"I—I don't understand...."

"You will." With slow deliberation, I fanned the walls with my cone of greenish light. I had no illusions that my grin was pleasant. "You see, Miss Stelpa, somewhere aboard this ship there's a Kel who doesn't want this beam to burn him. He doesn't want it so bad he'll even betray the rest of his kind in order to prevent it.

"Starting right now, we're going to find that traitor!"

CHAPTER VI

THRILL-MILLS, F.O.B.

The first three Kel Celeste rooted out were loyal to their species.

Unto death.

The fourth, it seemed, felt differently about it. Even life in the FedGov's interplanetary zoo, apparently, was acceptable, when weighed against no life at all.

Our problems resolved themselves into routine, almost, after that ... a course to set, the ship to steer, messages to send to lure other globes into range of FedGov weapons.

Then, finally, the job was done. The last Kel ship save this one had been swept from space 

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